Friends,
Foes & Fireworks is a completely
improvised feature film shot in a single night on New Year's Eve across seven
locations in St Kilda, Victoria. It is also the reason we still make films
today.

Prior to 2016, and filming FF&F on the final night of that
year, we had been involved in film in Melbourne for a decade. We tried all
sorts of genres, from thrillers to dramas to musicals to westerns, even making
a completely over-the-top gross out comedy feature in 2011. We would have
decent budgets for our short films, topping $10,000 a few times, money raised
through grants or crowdfunding or family or our own funds, even doing the
typical indie credit card film a couple of times. We had big crews, big
schedules, strict hierarchies, structured scripts, more lights than we needed,
greenscreens, and a constant desire to challenge ourselves, go bigger, do
better with each new project.

In the second half of 2016, we would
produce a short called Half, a
project for the Script to Screen Initiative, a program which we had launched as
part of our Made In Melbourne Film Festival, to give indigenous scriptwriters a
chance to see their script developed and made into a film that would premiere
at the festival. It was another big, expensive, and complicated short film. And
it was full of conflict and clashes behind the scenes, all the cooks in the
kitchen (and there were many) working together without ever agreeing on the
recipe. And we weren’t blameless – we were one of the chefs. But after the film
was done we were exhausted and frustrated.

2016 would also be the final Made In
Melbourne Film Festival. It was our biggest ever, funded by the City of
Melbourne, six days, more than 1000 people in attendance. But after a decade of
filmmaking, after eight years of running the festival, after so much time and
money spent on this passion and living and breathing film in Melbourne with so
many crazy people we loved (and a few we didn’t), we were simply burned out.

We were no longer enjoying filmmaking.

And it was in that state of mind where
the idea for Friends, Foes &
Fireworks sparked. We could either walk completely away from film (and we
did consider that) or we could do something to try and rediscover why we fell
in love with filmmaking in the first place. The collaboration. Collective
creativity. Seeing our ideas brought to life, enhanced by incredibly talented
actors and artists, right before our eyes.

We wanted to strip away all the excess.
The rigid structure. The big crews and big cameras. We wanted to be free to
experiment, to try ideas and be allowed to fail, to create as a trusted team
and have no expectations other than enjoying the process of creating. Filming
for the love of film.

We had been watching mumblecore films
for a couple of years prior to Friends,
Foes & Fireworks; the work of Joe Swanberg, the Duplass Brothers, Greta
Gerwig, and even Melbourne’s own Sophie Townsend and Nic Barker. The raw and
‘real’ nature of the genre appealed to us and it was the perfect vehicle for us
to test drive our experiment. Once we had the premise of our story – a group of
friends reunite on New Year’s Eve but the celebration turns to confrontation
when tensions from the past resurface – it seemed only natural to attempt to
shoot it in a single night to keep within the ‘reality’ aesthetic.

But how could we do it?

The first step was casting. We chose
actors that had experience with improvisation or theatre backgrounds so we knew
they would be active listeners, honed to respond naturally, quick on their
feet. We also had a history with all the actors involved; if we hadn’t cast
them previously in one of our films, we had worked with them on a set
somewhere. We knew they were passionate and committed to their craft, and we
knew we could collaborate with them and leave all ego aside.

We looked for the same mentality with
crew, people who were enthusiastic and humble and weren’t afraid to juggle
multiple roles as we wanted to keep the crew tiny to move quickly and blend
into the chaos of New Year’s Eve. Our Director of Photography, Stephen Ramplin,
came from a news background, so he was used to the ‘run and gun’ style we would
utilize, the handheld camera going from face to face as the action unfolded,
like eavesdropping on the conversations of real people.

Scheduling was also crucial. Not only
did we have an overall schedule, but everyone involved had their own individual
schedules with separate breaks, locations, timings all factored in.
Co-directing and two cameras also made it possible to shoot certain scenes
simultaneously – even when we were all in one place such as an apartment one of
us would direct a scene on the balcony while the other would direct a scene in
the bathroom. Later in the night, when the story called for it, we would split
up completely, one director leading one team to shoot a scene in the park, the
other director leading another team to shoot a scene in the apartment and so
on.

So really, despite the improvised
nature of the film, it all came down to good and thorough planning. There might
be no script, but there was an outline, a breakdown of each scene, story beats
to hit, and detailed character histories and relationships developed first by
ourselves as directors, then refined over multiple back and forth discussions
with our cast. The rehearsals, where we recreated scenes from the past the
characters would have shared, were wonderful to witness. As we watched our
actors improvise long takes naturally and build on the drama in the outlines we
became confident this crazy idea could work.

We were feeling alive and energised
again while making a film. We were challenging ourselves, but enjoying the
process. Improvisation keeps you constantly on your toes because every take is
different, every conversation is different. There is a joy of discovery in
every moment. And, for us, it was like falling in love with filmmaking all over
again.

Since Friends, Foes & Fireworks, we have relocated from Australia to
Malta, and gone on to film another completely improvised feature called In Corpore, an anthological story
dealing with love, sex, and betrayal set in Melbourne, Malta, New York and
Berlin. In Corpore is in the last
stages of post production at the moment. We have also started filming
improvised micro-shorts called Life
Improvised, focusing on the mini moments in relationships, the awkwardness,
a first connection, a lingering heartache, etc. We are also developing a
follow-up of sorts to Friends, Foes &
Fireworks called To Hold the Moon,
focusing on a couple of characters from the film and their relationship two
years later.

We haven’t touched a script since our
film life crisis in 2016. And, frankly, we don’t know if we ever will again.

Melbourne Screening: Friends, Foes
& Fireworks will headline night six of the Oz International Film Festival
on Wednesday 28th November starting at 7pm, Alex Theatre, St Kilda. Buy tickets
here:http://oziff.com/friends-foes-fireworks/